Effects of polydopamine modification on self-grown CuO cube anodes in lithium-ion batteries

We report the synthesis of Cut cubes with well-defined size and shape by thermal treatments of Cu2O cubes. Polydopamine （PDA） is introduced to modify the Cut cubes by the in-situ polymerization of the dopamine precursor. The initial specific ca- pacity of the lithium-ion batteries using the Cut cubes as anodes increases about 10 times at a 0.5 C rate as a result of the modification of PDA. The overall specific capacity for 100 cycles also increases effectively due to the introduction of PDA. So PDA as surface modifying agent significantly improves the electrochemical performance of the Cut anodes.